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JURY

Elica BRAJNOVIC - Spain

Elica Brajnovic de Leahy, from Spain, licentiated in Journalism at the University of Navarra (Pamplona, Spain) and got a Master of Arts in Film Direction at the University of Cincinnati (Ohio, U.S.A.).
A section of her Master Thesis is a film entitled "Beyond the glass wall", which was chosen for its presentation in 1969 at the Ann Arbor Student Film Festival and was awarded with a First Honorable Mention.
In 1994 partecipated at the Fourth World Conference on Women, at Pekin, China with the presentation of the documentary "Women: Victims of the war", filmed in Croatia during the War in that country.
She was professor of Film Aesthetics at the School of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Navarra and Associate Professor of Specialized Journalism (Televised interviews and Scientific Video) at the School of Communication of the same University.
Elica Brajnovic de Leahy published more than 2,000 articles and interviews and produced more than 50 scientific documentaries as news items for diverse Spanish television channels.
She is the winner of six prizes at the Festival Internacional de Cine Medico - VIDEOMED (Badajoz, Spain) and at the Festival de Cine de Medicina de Atención Primaria  (Vigo, Spain).
She is also the author of the manual "How to present a scientific communication" (1989).
Since 1987 Elica is the Director of the Department of Audio-visual Productions (University Clinic, University of Navarra) specialised in the production of medical, scientific, research and teaching videos (total number to date: 328).
Elica Brajnovic de Leahy is Honorary Consul of the Republic of Croatia in Spain.

Umberto DE GIOVANNI - Italy

Born in Milan on January 9th, 1951, he specialized in directing science videos. Since 1969 he has been working for Italy’s National Research Council (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, CNR) as a science photography expert.
In 1972 he won a public competition for science documentary directors organized by CNR. He has headed the CNR Science Cinema Dept. in Milan since 1982.
During his 36-year long career he has made several films about scientific research, education and dissemination.
Many of his films have been awarded official recognitions at domestic and international science film festivals.
He is currently a member of the International Association for Media in Science.
All his documentaries are on-line on the http://rcs.mi.cnr.it website.

Jean-Pierre GIBRAT - France

Jean-Pierre GIBRAT is an independent producer, director and author. He is CEO of Trans Europe Film, based in Paris.
He has produced, directed and written many films for the television, the museums and the cultural organizations,
The last productions:
Alice in the cockroachland: Athena Innovation Prize 2nd International Science Film Festival of Athens, 2007
End of the rainbow: International documentary film of Amsterdam, First appearance award 2007
Between Two: First Prize « Medical Film » Liège 2008.
He is President of Association Science & Television (AST) and Director of Pariscience Festival.

Alessandro GRIFFINI - Italy

An industrial chemist, in the Sixties he served as an official at the Euratom Research Center in Ispra, Italy, and at the Institute for Transuranium Elements in Karlsruhe, Germany, where he specialized in plutonium characterization.
In the Seventies he contributed to set up Italy’s first plutonium-based plant at ENEA’s (formerly CNEN’s) Research Center at Casaccia, near Rome.
He has been involved in the media industry since 1978. His initial focus areas, namely research and training, were later replaced by dissemination and promotion, which led him to manage the migration from film to magnetic media, all the way to present-day digital media.
Until 2002 he was in charge of the exhibition and audiovisual department of ENEA (the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the Environment). In that capacity he has produced all of the Agency’s videos in the past twenty years and has taken care of all associated production and management issues and of all exhibitions and events. A workshop and seminar lecturer, a Master course professor, the President of international Scientific and Environmental Film Festivals held in Paris, Liège, Prague, Vila Real and Beijng and a Scientific and Institutional Communication advisor at Formez, IRCCS Santa Lucia and Santiago, Chile, he is also the President of the Paris-based International Association for Media in Science (IAMS) and a member of the General Board of the World Association of Medical and Health Films (WAMHF) in Badajoz.

Alexis MARTINET - France

Alexis Martinet was until last year the Research Manager (Directeur de Recherche) of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique).
After several years in the field (1962 – 1980) at the Laboratoire de Physique des Solides in Orsay (Paris XI University), where he investigated fields such as superconductors, ferrofluids and liquid crystals in collaboration with Prof. Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, he spent some time at the Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientificas (IVIC) in Caracas, where he lived from 1966 to 1968. Later on he devoted his work to the dissemination of scientific and technological information, basically through films. For the past twenty years he worked at the Institut de Cinématographie Scientifique (ICS), nowadays a quasi-historical institution that he managed from 1991 to 2007. He has directed approx. a dozen films that target different audiences, ranging from the general public to experts, in various fields of pure sciences and technology, focusing especially on the interface between science and cinema. He regularly organizes screenings of scientific films followed by debates.

Gianna MILANO - Italy

Gianna Milano completed her education at Università L.Bocconi in Milan. She specialized in science journalism at New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she took advantage of the Knight Science Journalism Fellowships.
For over twenty years she has been dealing with science and medicine dissemination from the science section of the Italian weekly Panorama. She has published a number of articles in journals of medical ethics. Her commitment to the promotion of high-quality scientific information and the relationship between science, society and the media started in 2000, when she took a course for science journalists organized by Pavia’s University OpenLab in cooperation with the Dept. of Developmental Biology and Prof. Carlo Alberto Redi’s team. Since 2003 she has been teaching science journalism at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste. She freelances for radio programs (RAI-3) and a number of magazines. She is the author of several books and publications, including: Sangue e Aids, Storia di uno scandalo italiano; Bioetica, dalla A alla Z; Quando un bambino non sa leggere; La rivoluzione delle cellule staminali.

Richard SMITH - Australia

Australian Richard Smith has been making science and natural history programmes for about 20 years. Among his many award-winning documentaries are space science films such as Black Holes, On Jupiter and Rumble in the Jungle as well as environmental landmarks such as Silent Sentinels and 50 Million Years Under the Sea.

With a background as a marine scientist, Dr Smith has worked on much of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s television science output ranging from short magazine style and studio-based shows though to feature-length programmes. As well, he has written, directed and produced numerous prominent international documentaries for UK and US free-to-air and cable channels.

Richard has earned an enviable international reputation for his work, with a long list of prestigious television awards to his credit. He puts this down to love of a good story and his fascination with the subject matter.

Richard is generally involved with all stages of production from story conception, through to final delivery. His latest film, Crude, is an exploration of the extraordinary story of oil.